Chapter 15

"Ugh! What is this stench? It's almost as bad as when we entered your dad's place. Hey? Hey?! Vioarr?!" Rushing as fast as his two little legs could carry him, Jax ran through the last stretch of the forest to try and find his companion.

"Hey! This isn't funny! Answer me if you're not hurt! Hey! Little gu-MHMMM!"

"Shhh! Brother! I have a bad feeling about this! The vibe in the air…reeks of death!" whispered Vioarr in a slightly excited voice.

"What are you talking about? How come I didn't sense anyth-" but before Jax could finish, he saw the sight of metal barrels and a tank feasting on their prey?

"WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THAT?!" shouted Jax in a surprised voice.

"SHHH!" Vioarr tried to shush his brother's voice down but alas, it was already too late. The five metal barrels and the humongous tank all turned in their direction.

"Oops. Me and my big mouth. Now I've done it. Mother is definitely going to drop me out of the academy after today. Sigh"

"You still have the time to joke? RUN!"

The two turned around and sprinted back the way the came as fast as they could. But if you know anything about Nidoran, they have short, stubby legs! And a child? Even shorter and stubbier legs! No matter how fast the two ran, could they really outrun a tank?

Not even 5 minutes later, their pursuers caught up to the duo and as it turned out, it wasn't a tank at all. In fact, if was a family of Metagross and Beldums!

"Whoa! Crazy! Who knew the Great Beyond had such strong pokemons! I should have come here the first time! Then I wouldn't have been stuck with your stubby legs!" shouted Jax who was still trying to run away from the family of colossal metal.

"Ugh! We have to turn and fight! Brother, it looks like they brought their dinner along! I can still get my perfect EVs! Then we'll make short work of them!"

"Okay! But hurry, those Metapods are about to expire!"

As Vioarr rushed off to last hit the Metapods, Jax tried his best to distract the metal family of six. But what can a child do without a pokemon? All Jax was left to do was flail his arms and legs to try and draw their attention. Surprisingly, the family probably thought Jax was the easiest to take care of first, so they all charged at him.

In the meantime, Vioarr reached the two barely breathing Metapods and used his maxed-out Confusion to kill them both! Huh? Wait, what's that light around Vioarr?

Jax who was still busy trying to dodge the metal family had no extra room to pay any attention to his partner in crime. He was literal an inch away from death's doors.

As the light continue to pour on Vioarr, Jax was dodging, sliding, jumping, and side stepping his way from barely meeting Kami-sama again. 'Ugh! I knew it was a bad idea to come this close to the Great Beyond! If and when I make it out of here alive, I'll make poison soup out of Vioarr myself!' humphed Jax.

Finally, the light around Vioarr slowly started to dim and…out emerged a slightly larger Nidoran (M). Aside from a longer horn and spikes on his back, Vioarr looked practically the same! Talk about an evolution, was this just the same thing?! At least his short, stubby legs are so short and stubby anymore!

"Brother! I'm done evolving! And I hit perfect EVs like you said! I'm coming over!"

"Hurry! If you don't rush those stubby legs of yours, you won't have anyone to call brother anymore in this world!"

Vioarr using his now non-short and non-stubby legs rushed towards the family of six and directly rammed his now longer horn into the side of the largest one, the Metagross!

"RAWRRR!" Yeah, the Metagross definitely felt that one.

"About time you got here, Stubby! C'mon, let's go with the Triangle 1 tactic!"

This was something Jax and Vioarr came up with together. Instead of letting their opponent know what move or action they were going to do like all the other trainers, Jax decided on a set phrase that encompass skill moves and actions to mislead their opponent.

For example, this current Triangle tactic that they were trying to implement meant that Vioarr would go on the offensive and attack! Attack! Attack! It was an aggressive play style that left the opponent no other option but to play defensively.

Another thing to note was the leveling system of moves. At level one, pokemon moves dealt the same damage that is originally listed. But for every level increase, the same move had a 0.25 multiplier applied to their damage. And when a move hits the max level, it experiences a massive qualitative change but that will be for later.

For example, let's take a look at Vioarr's maxed-out Confusion. At level 1, the most basic level of any move, Confusion only did 50 points of damage with a 10 percent chance of confusing the target. This might seem like a lot, but you must take a pokemon's defense and special defense into account. After the calculation, the move does negligible damage! At level 2, Confusion does 1.25x it's normal damage at around 62.5, then 75 damage at level 3 and finally 87.5 at level 4.

But author, what was that qualitative change you were raving about a maxed-out move!? Worry not readers, I was just about to get to that part! A 2x power increase to a pokemon's move sounds good on paper, but Trainer's wouldn't struggle so hard to raise their pokemon's skill mastery to the MAX limit simply for that.

Since Jax was able to train Vioarr's Confusion to MAX level, not only does it do 100 points of damage, it now had a 50 percent chance to cause confusion! Instead of the standard one in every ten attacks causing confusion, it was now one in every two! This is a HUGEEE deal! Confusion usually persists on a pokemon anywhere between two to five turns. That means once a pokemon has been confused by Vioarr, he can just keep spamming Confusion and keep the pokemon in an endless, perpetual cycle of confusion!